New Digital Marketing Guide Mallory Graham 1

DIGITAL MARKETING
FOR
SMALL BUSINESS
A
STEP-BY-STEP
GUIDE TO ONLINE MARKETING
STRATEGY
with
MALLORY GRAHAM
CONGRATULATIONS!
Getting starting with digital marketing can be
very overwhelming for a lot of small business
owners, especially if you are not frequently
using online channels yourself. It’s important to
remember that anyone who has ever mastered
anything only did so from hours of practice,
which means these skills can also be learned
and mastered as well.
If you have a limited budget, there’s a lot you
can do in digital marketing without spending a
dime – but when it comes to reaching new

audiences, having just a little budget can go a
very long way. Every part of your digital
marketing journey is a great opportunity to
learn, and the fastest way to learn is by
starting out small, testing what we've tried,

learning from it, and then developing those
new skills over time. In this guide, we’re going
to take you through the step by step process to
create a marketing strategy that will make you
feel confident that you’re testing and investing
in the way that’s right for you and the growth
of your business.
LET'S BEGIN!
DIGITAL MARKETING GUIDE MG 2019 MALLORY GRAHAM 2

FUNDAMENTAL MARKETING TERMS:
MARKETING
Marketing is the process of getting prospects and
customers interested in your product or service,
moving them seamlessly and subtly through each
phase of the Buyer's Journey. This happens with

a solid understanding of your ideal customer's
wants and needs.
DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital marketing is a comprehensive term for all
of your online marketing efforts. Businesses utilize
digital marketing channels such as Google, social
media, email marketing and their websites to
connect with current and potential customers.
INBOUND MARKETING
Inbound marketing is about using marketing
strategies and tactics to bring prospective
customers to your business, rather than pushing
sales and advertisements to fight for their
attention. Creating and sharing valuable content
with the world that is educational, or entertaining
is the essence of inbound marketing.

FUNDAMENTAL MARKETING TERMS:
CONTENT MARKETING
Content marketing is a marketing program that
focuses on creating, publishing and digitally
distributing content for your target audience. The
goal of content marketing is to attract new
customers by creating content specifically
designed for them. Qualified prospects will then
be drawn into your business which will instill trust
and loyalty to your business.
SEGMENTATION
Dividing the market into similar categories (or
segments) and using these as a basis for sales
and marketing efforts. Segmentation is important
as it can help you discover new customers,
prioritize the best customers, and market to
customer segments differently based on their
needs and preferences.
SETTING A STRATEGY
A strategy simply means thinking about why
you’re doing something before you do it. Getting
started on your digital marketing strategy is as
simple as deciding what you want to do, why it is
you want to do that, how you will go about doing
it, what you think will happen as a result, and
when and how you will measure your success.

BUYER'S JOURNEY
The buyer's journey is the process buyers go through to become aware of,
consider and evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service.
Configuring this strategy will streamline the entire customer acquisition
process, so you can sell without explicitly selling and promote your
product or service without coming across as pushy.
AWARENESS ENGAGEMENT SUBSCRIBE

Prospect has seen Prospect reads a Prospect signs up to
an ad or heard blog post, comments receive notifications
about you. on social media, or emails from your
watches video etc. business.
UPSELL EXCITEMENT CONVERSION
Customer gets Prospect signs up

INTRO OFFER
value from initial for demo or makes
transaction a small purchase
UPSELL #1
UPSELL #2
ADVOCATE PROMOTE
Happy customer Loyal customer
gives a positive encourages friends
UPSELL #... review to buy
This will generate a “conversion funnel” that seamlessly leads a prospect
from being aware of to promoting the business.

8 STEPS DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
SUMMARY
1 IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
2 KNOW YOUR BRAND
3 UNDERSTAND YOUR MARKET
4 SET A MEASURABLE CAMPAIGN GOAL
5 CREATE A CALL TO ACTION
6 DEVELOP CONTENT
7 CHOOSE YOUR TRAFFIC SOURCE(S)
8 MEASURE PERFORMANCE

STEP #1 IDENTIFY TARGET AUDIENCE
After you have established what your focused goal is,
identifying who the target audience is for that particular goal is
crucial for achieving success. Get to know your audience well
and the specifics about who they are! If you don’t understand
enough about who you’re trying to communicate with, it will be
very difficult to deliver a message that is relevant to them.
The easiest way to have a specific and focused target

audience for your campaign is to create buyer personas, which
are fictionalized, descriptions of your key customer groups.
WHY IS CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION IMPORTANT?

It can help you discover new customers
Segmentation can help you prioritize the best customers
You can begin marketing to customer segments differently
based on their needs and preferences
HOW TO CREATE BUYER PERSONAS

HOW TO CREATE BUYER PERSONAS:
1 SEGMENT CUSTOMERS
Ask yourself who your most ideal/favorite
customers are and group them into 3 or 4 groups
2 TYPE OF PERSONA
Create an individual character for each group, and first
identify what type of persona they are (ie. the buyer,
user, purchase influencer etc)
3 VALUES, WANTS, NEEDS

Give the persona a name, a personality, what their
primary wants, needs, and motivators are. (What is
most important to this person, what are their values?)
4 RANK THEM
Rank the personas based on which is best to
target first, who is easiest to access, which has the
most lifetime value.
5 CLARITY & QUALITY

Before you start targeting, be totally clear which
of them is the most important to your business, and
why.

EXAMPLE BUYER PERSONA:
Company / Product: Flexible Online Fitness Program
SOPHIA
GOALS: CHALLENGES:
Sophia is challenged with...
Sophia wants to...
having enough time
be a good mom
to travel to a gym
live a healthy lifestyle
finding a flexible
be a good wife
online program
be first of her friends
staying motivated
to try new things
VALUES: PAIN POINTS:

Sophia's pain points are...
Sophia is committed to...
fear of becoming unhealthy
spending time with
fear of spending away from
family
family
earning an income
lacks work-out knowledge
exercising daily
DEMOGRAPHICS:
SOURCES OF Gender: Female
PERSONA TYPE:
INFORMATION: Age: 35
Role in the purchase process:
Sophia is the decision

Marital Status: Married
How Sophia finds maker, she shops online
Children: 2 (age 4 & 7)
information: often using her iPad Pro
Location: Toronto, ON
Online research
Facebook
Instagram
BACKGROUND: OBJECTIONS:
Women's Health Job: Sales Manager Possible objections are...
is expensive equipment
Magazine Industry: Personal Care
required?
Healthy Living
Education: College Graduate
annual memberships
Podcasts
aren't flexible enough

STEP #2 KNOW YOUR BRAND
Your brand resembles what
your business is about, it’s
personality and why your
customers choose you over
your competitors. It is
important to define your brand
clearly – what do you stand

for? What are your strongest
values? How does your brand
translate to all the potential
customer touch points – from
the images you use on your
social channels to the
language you use in your
emails?
BRAND AUDIT CHEATSHEET

BRAND AUDIT CHEATSHEET:
1 WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER?

Compare your primary personas - review, keep them top of mind and visualized when
answering the following questions. What are their reasons for buying?
2 WHAT PROBLEM DO YOU SOLVE?

From your customer’s perspective, what are the main challenges are you solving
for them? What is the perceived value for each of them?
3 WHAT ARE THE DISTINCT BENEFITS?

What are the distinct benefits your product/service has over the competition?
List 3-5 benefits your customer will get and why they are important to them.
4 WHAT PROMISE DO YOU MAKE?

What will you consistently do for your customers? This is the other key part of
your value proposition that differentiates you from competing businesses.
5 DO THE BENEFITS MATTER?

How do your customer's needs, interests, and motivators, fit with how you are
communicating your unique benefits? Summarize the above answers to craft a
single paragraph that covers them. Overlapping phrases and concepts are okay
– the goal is to end up with one unique message.
6 CRAFT BRAND MISSION STATEMENT

Take time to consolidate, refine, and review several times until you have a
concise value proposition consisting of one clear line that captures everything
you want to say.

STEP #3 UNDERSTAND YOUR MARKET
By mapping out your competitors, and other players in your market, you
can consider the similarities and differences between you and them.
KNOW YOUR COMPETITION MY BUSINESS
{
Direct competitors – businesses
who offer the same products or
services as you
Indirect competitors – businesses S W

that offer similar products or STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
services as you
Replacement competitors –
businesses that offer different
O T
products or services but solve the OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
same problem that your customers

{
are having
EXTERNAL MARKET
Complete SWOT Analysis of your internal strengths and weaknesses,
compared to the external market opportunities and threats. It is
important to be aware of what's out there, to know what you’re up
against, and you can learn from their mistakes and successes.

STEP #4 SET A MEASURABLE GOAL
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE?

REMEMBER: We need to move prospects or customers through each
phase of the Buyer’s Journey, through building marketing campaigns
that focus on ONE of these goals at a time.
Marketing campaigns have TWO components:
1 -Call to action: What do we want people to do?

2- Traffic source: Paid ads, email, social media, search engines
(anything that gets the call to action in front of your prospect's eyeballs)
Pick ONE goal to focus “The thing about goals is that
on, and make sure living without them is a lot
you’ve asked yourself more fun, in the short run. It
why this goal is most seems to me, though, that the
important to your people who get things done,
business. Thoroughly who lead, who grow and who
understanding the goal make an impact… those
you’re trying to hit is the people have goals.”
very first step to
achieving it! —Seth Godin

FOCUS ON ONE CAMPAIGN GOAL
It is impossible to move people all the way from stranger to promoter in
one step, in one campaign, you need to create multiple specific

campaigns that are designed to move people from one stage to the
next.
AWARENESS ENGAGEMENT SUBSCRIBE

Prospect has seen Prospect reads a Prospect signs up to
an ad or heard blog post, comments receive notifications
about you. on social media, or emails from your
watches video etc. business.
UPSELL EXCITEMENT CONVERSION
Customer gets Prospect signs up

INTRO OFFER
value from initial for demo or makes
transaction a small purchase
UPSELL #1
UPSELL #2
ADVOCATE PROMOTE
Happy customer Loyal customer
gives a positive encourages friends
UPSELL #... review to buy

STEP #5 CALL TO ACTION
WHAT ACTION DO WE WANT THEM TO TAKE?

The call to action is what you want people to do. As content users, we are
subconsciously searching for a clear indication of what we're supposed to do with
the content in front of us. Here are some call to action examples below:
If the goal is to create awareness for a brand, an example call to action
could be to watch a video, whereas moving a customer from customer to
advocate could include a thank you email requesting a testimonial.
Example: Spotify
Goal: Subscribe to Convert
Call to action: Try premium for free

STEP #6 CONTENT
WHAT CONTENT WILL SUPPORT THE GOAL?

Content marketing will not only attract prospects, but also move them
through a marketing funnel to drive more sales and grow your business.
Having effective content is about delivering the right information to your
prospects at exactly the right point in the Buyer Journey.
THE CONTENT FUNNEL

1 The prospect
AWARENESS
must first be aware of Blog Posts Podcasts
their problem and that Social Media Updates Videos
your business has a Photos Newsletters
solution for it. Infographics Research
2 The prospect now

EVALUATION
evaluates their available
eBooks Discount/Coupons
choices, including your
Software Download Quiz/Survey
competitor’s solutions, but
Useful Resources Webinar/Event
haven't made a choice yet.
3 Those that have

CONVERSION
successfully evaluated the Demo/Free Trial
offerings are now close to Comparison/Spec Sheet
the moment of truth— Customer Story
convert or purchase. Webinar/Event

STEP #7 TRAFFIC SOURCE(S)
HOW WILL WE GENERATE TRAFFIC?

The traffic source consists of the channels we want to use to distribute
the content in the most relevant way that makes sense for the content,
the call to action, and most importantly WHERE your target audience is
consuming content.
PAID VS FREE TRAFFIC

Most businesses understandably aim
for free (or organic) traffic first.
However, just like anything, you will
get what you pay for when it comes
to free and paid traffic.
Paid traffic is highly controlled and
you will see immediate results.
Whereas organic traffic is much
more competitive and requires a
thorough Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) strategy.

PAID TRAFFIC (ADS/SPONSORED)
For paid traffic, it is best to start with Facebook and Google. According
to Business Insider, these two sites drive 80% of referral traffic, more than
all of the other platforms combined.
Google Ads
To generate paid traffic through
Google, you'll bid on relevant
keywords that will help prospects
find your website.
Facebook Ads
As you scroll through your
newsfeed, you see organic posts,
and promoted posts. Your business
can spend very little on Facebook,
and still expand your reach. The
social platform knows a lot about
us, collecting tons of data on user
behaviours every day. All that data
makes Facebook the most
powerful advertising platform
available.

FREE (ORGANIC) - TRAFFIC
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is about expanding your visibility in the
organic search results, so when someone Googles your product or service
category, they find your website. Generating organic traffic through SEO
is similar to a marathon, it takes quite a while to win the race.
The three main components of SEO are:

1 - Technical (URL structure, page speed, user friendly sitemap)
2 - Content (page text, images, keywords, tags, meta-descriptions)
3 - Links (high traffic websites with links back to our site)
Google's goal is to put the absolute best page at the top of the results,
meaning the results that are most what the user is looking for.

STEP #8 BE READY TO MEASURE
Item 1
12%
Item 4
Coming up with wonderful ideas for 32%
how you will either drive traffic,

Item 2
20%
build awareness for your business,
or to get more sales from existing
customers is just the start of your
marketing strategy. It is crucial to
know how you will track your
progress made from any given Item 3

36%
campaign in order to make any
changes based on what is working

MARKETING KPI's
the best.
(Examples)
Measuring the metrics that matter Web Traffic from Search Ads
to your business, and the most Lead-to-Customer Ratio
relevant Key Performance Indicators Web Traffic from Social
(KPI’s) will tell you exactly what's Social Media Engagement
working, and what is not working. Revenue from Social Ads
Email Open Rate
Familiarizing yourself with important metrics associated with
your goals, whether its website traffic, walk-ins, followers,
contest entries, sales or clicks - it can make a significant
difference in measuring the return on your marketing spend.

ABOUT MALLORY GRAHAM
Mallory Graham completed her Honors Bachelor of Business
Administration degree at Wilfrid Laurier University, majoring in
Marketing & Brand Communications. After competing in a
New Venture Creation business pitch competition and
winning the KPMG Award in Entrepreneurship, for RezPoints
Rewards, Mallory launched the coalition loyalty program in
Curve Lake. Mallory founded Rosey’s Trading Post in 2013 – an
online retail store with a brick and mortar location in Curve
Lake, offering indigenous products including lifestyle clothing,
footwear, accessories, and gift-ware. Mallory is a trained and
experienced business and marketing consultant advising
clients on starting and growing their business.
"There is so much more to effective "Mallory's knowledge of marketing and
marketing than I understood, and a few understanding customers was the most
sessions with Mallory made that valuable for me. It was also incredibly
apparent. She helped me appreciate helpful to get her feedback and
that thorough preparation is as important suggestions on building a web presence.
as the execution of the plan. She made it Getting connected with the technology and
easy for me to grasp complex concepts, tools out there is such an overwhelming
and I appreciate her supportive nature thing so having her insights and suggestions
and knowledge." made it a lot easier to navigate."
- Susan Ramey, Camp Kawartha - MC Buell, Collective Environmental

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DIGITAL MARKETING

Getting starting with digital marketing can be

very overwhelming for a lot of small business

owners, especially if you are not frequently

using online channels yourself. It’s important to

remember that anyone who has ever mastered

anything only did so from hours of practice,

which means these skills can also be learned

and mastered as well.

If you have a limited budget, there’s a lot you

can do in digital marketing without spending a

dime – but when it comes to reaching new

marketing journey is a great opportunity to

learn, and the fastest way to learn is by

starting out small, testing what we've tried,

new skills over time. In this guide, we’re going

to take you through the step by step process to

create a marketing strategy that will make you

feel confident that you’re testing and investing

in the way that’s right for you and the growth

DIGITAL MARKETING GUIDE MG 2019 MALLORY GRAHAM 2

customers interested in your product or service,

moving them seamlessly and subtly through each

phase of the Buyer's Journey. This happens with

wants and needs.

of your online marketing efforts. Businesses utilize

digital marketing channels such as Google, social

media, email marketing and their websites to

connect with current and potential customers.

strategies and tactics to bring prospective

customers to your business, rather than pushing

sales and advertisements to fight for their

attention. Creating and sharing valuable content

with the world that is educational, or entertaining

is the essence of inbound marketing.

DIGITAL MARKETING GUIDE MG 2019 MALLORY GRAHAM 3

focuses on creating, publishing and digitally

distributing content for your target audience. The

goal of content marketing is to attract new

customers by creating content specifically

designed for them. Qualified prospects will then

be drawn into your business which will instill trust

and loyalty to your business.

segments) and using these as a basis for sales

and marketing efforts. Segmentation is important

as it can help you discover new customers,

prioritize the best customers, and market to

customer segments differently based on their

needs and preferences.

you’re doing something before you do it. Getting

started on your digital marketing strategy is as

simple as deciding what you want to do, why it is

you want to do that, how you will go about doing

it, what you think will happen as a result, and

when and how you will measure your success.

DIGITAL MARKETING GUIDE MG 2019 MALLORY GRAHAM 4

consider and evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service.

Configuring this strategy will streamline the entire customer acquisition

product or service without coming across as pushy.

AWARENESS ENGAGEMENT SUBSCRIBE

an ad or heard blog post, comments receive notifications

about you. on social media, or emails from your